Animated Prime
by An Preson Peepul
Summary: The last remnants of a group of rebels. A team of soldiers under the orders of an intergalactic empire. It is on Earth that these two sides will meet. The trouble is, with robots in disguise, no one knows who to trust.


**Maybe a few people will remember when I said "I've got an idea for a Transformers fic" last week when I was ending To Mirror the Broken Glass? This...**

**Isn't that.**

**But it could be, so stick around maybe.**

* * *

The yellow mech made for an imposing figure against the night sky as he searched the empty streets. While he was hardly the biggest of his kind, to any other life form who might have seen him, he was a giant. Fortunate, then, that no one was awake. With the moon high in the sky, no light shone from the buildings lining the street. All around him, the windows were dark.

Blue optics scanned over the buildings. Even at night, the streets were well lit, the street lamps on the side casting a bright spotlight on the ground, like they were setting a stage. The structures that lay beyond the range of the street lamps glowed silver in the moonlight, and that made it easy to pick out the shape of the buildings in the dark.

Bumblebee was on the hunt. He and his team had crash-landed on this planet, Earth, mega-cycles prior. Their ship was down, and they had no means of calling for help. They were alone on this far-flung planet. A few of the others found the prospect frightening. Bumblebee thought it was exciting.

Being so far away from Cybertron, the Autobots knew nothing about this place. The leader of their team had sent them all out to investigate, to see if the planet had any hostile life-forms on it. On his drive here, he had seen a few, but none of them were too noteworthy. Just a group of tiny reptiles, maybe a small mammal or two scattered in the vast fields of sand.

This, however, was much more promising.

From the buildings scattered around, Bumblebee guessed it was a small town of some sort. He'd seen a sign posted at the edge on his way in. Jasper, Nevada, it said. A name, perhaps? It didn't matter, seeing as the place was uninhabited, a discarded shell of whatever civilization this planet had housed. For now, at least.

His light yellow pedes barely made a sound as he trudged further down the street. Buildings passed him as he moved silently. He didn't stop to take a look. They all looked the same to him, hollow and lifeless.

Bumblebee rounded a corner, expecting much of the same. A shock of yellow caught his optic, hiding in the darkness in an alleyway, shining brightly as it reflected the moonlight, instead of taking on a silver gleam like the towering structures around it. Metal, a refreshing sight after all the cold stone and endless stretch of sand.

Upon taking a second to adjust his optics to the dark, he realized that the metal was actually a component of some kind of vehicle. He leaned closer to get a better look. From the shape, it could have easily been the alt-form for a fellow Cybertronian. His sensors couldn't pick up any life signals, however. This vehicle was as dead as the rest of the place, much to his disappointment.

As Bumblebee leaned back, he finally noticed the similar vehicles parked all around the street. He let his optics roam over the vehicles before he drew them back to the vehicle beside him. Maybe this could work as a disguise?

A green light emerged from his optics as he scanned the vehicle. It was over as soon as it had begun, and Bumblebee's armor quickly adjusted to its new shape. As Bumblebee looked over himself, examining his new form, his audio receptors picked up a slam behind him.

His optics locked on to a small building. A sign hovering above it marked as a "Car Wash", and a sleek, red vehicle was parked right beside it. Careful not to disturb the vehicle, Bumblebee stepped over to the car wash, curious. His armor shuffled as he knelt beside it, peering through the windows. An empty space, filled with all kinds of strange contraptions was all he found inside.

A_udio receptors must be faulty,_ he thought as he stood back up. Stepping away, he transformed into his new alt-form, a bright yellow vehicle striped with black, and without a second look behind him, he drove away.

* * *

As soon as the Autobot was out of sight, Knock Out let out a deep ex-vent. His spark hammered in his chest, still reeling from the feeling of terror. That was just too close.

_There's no way an Autobot would just happen to be on this backwater system,_ he thought. _They've finally found us._

His headlights flickered on as he pulled out into the street. Jasper, Nevada was a sleepy town. Nothing ever happened in the night, so everyone was almost guaranteed to be asleep. No one would notice a red car barreling down the road in the middle of the night, just as they hadn't noticed the giant robot in their midst.

There weren't many Decepticons left, not after they'd lost the War for Cybertron. With their passing, the Autobot empire continued as normal. The Decepticon rebels that remained, however, were hunted down. He was one of the few that remained, having fled to far-flung planets like this in hopes of remaining undetected. It had worked for him, at least until now.

As he tore through the quiet town, one thought echoed in his processor: _Commander Starscream has to know._

* * *

**So, I have been watching Transformers Prime again. I've also been watching bits of Transformers Animated, which is really a testament to how well I manage my time. Anyway, this is just a random idea that jumped out at me sometime earlier this week. Right now, I've got a few other things I'm working on, but once I'm done with that I might come back here to extend this into a longer story.**

**I started writing this right after I finished writing another Brotherhood of Smash chapter on Wednesday, so it's very short. I'll try to make subsequent chapters longer (if I ever do get writing them), but this was really just me getting an idea out on paper.**


End file.
